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Did I miss something? Where are the words "Fiscal Union?" Is it realistic to believe a federal state can exist without a mechanism for intrastate transfers? How much longer can the EU skate around the issue? The imposition of a fiscal union will be the measure of the unity in the EU. The failure to seriously consider one is the true measure of the current and future integration of the EU. The other proposals are mere band-aids.

Barry. Why would we need a fiscal Union ? Will it bring any benefits ? It will undoubtly add some more bureaucracy and reduce the souvereignity and flexibility of the memberstates. Who needs that ?

Also I think they should first clean up the mess created by the introduction of the Euro.The Public Debts, the trailing competitivity in France and Italy, the democratic deficit of the EU organization.

I agree with last senteses by the author. However there is more to be done.The common market of the EU is a great achievement and an achievement everybody is happy with. However the last 15 years the EU has stumbled from one disaster to another.+ The Balkan crises, destruction of Lybia, Euro crises, Greek crisis, Refugee crises, Ukraine crises.I think an evaluation should be made about the management and decisionprocesses in the EU, before we move to some more careless implementations of the EU.+ The Euro has been a disaster for about every country. Greece impoverished, High and long duration of unemployment, High debts in Geece, Italy, France and others. Decreasing value of Pensionfunds in Germany and the Netherlands. Lessons have to be learnt.+ Democracy in the EU management has to be improved.- Mr. Juncker presents a State of Union address as plan of action ( not a dream ). It demonstrates how far he is out of touch with the people. He wants a totalitairian superstate, his successor will be the highest President. His plan was rejected in a poll in the Netherlands by 96 % of the respondents.No EU country wants any more immigrants. But mr. Junckers wants more immigrants, based on fake arguments.- Vice President mr. Timmermans wants to diversify the EU by admitting people from other cultures. This would strenghten our people, he supposes, just like it happens in biology.However the people of the EU is already very diverse.- Transparancy has to be improved. Especially about the costs of what mr. Juncker calls solidairity.Solidairity which extends over the whole of Europe and into Africa. Who will be paying ?- In the EU organisation you see the same faces for many years. We need more fresh faces, also from outside the EU community.- The subsidies the EU pays has to be cut, as the EU Commission buys too much power with it.- The role of the EU parliament is unclear, as every country also has its own Parliament. This should be reviewed.- The budget of the staff of the EU commission ( now 25000 empl. ) should be approved by the EU Council. ( I read that the EU Commission has reduced the number of iniatives by 75 %. So the staff may be much smaller now).We need an EU Organisation that accepts and respects the diversity of the 27 members and works to enhance cooperation between them and develop synergy.Why is the EU not organized like the NATO ? This organisation is strong and proved itself for almost 70 years. When commanders in the field see opportunties for cooperation with other NATO Armies they take iniatives themselves.

Not a single politician in Europe is telling the truth. Not even the extremists, born out of the economic crisis. The payment obligations already built into the cake outstrip the projected income by several orders of magnitude. There is no possible way to create the amount of wealth needed into the future.

The shortcoming in the pension funds will make the subprime financial crisis look like a walk inthe park. Pension funds need to generate circa 6% income growth annually to cover for future payment obligations. Next 12 years income projection is 0,3 % annually, with likely drawdowns of -60% if any run-of-the-mill return to the median takes place.

So it is not a question of Ninja's failing to meet their monthly mortgage invoice.We are talking of retirees getting a fraction of their financial needs.

At the very next recession, several member states will jump ship.But until then, the official tape is "extend and pretend".

Kemal Derviş says calm has set in after the German election. Merkel's leadership seems solid, despite gains made by the far-right party, the AfD. Emmanuel Macron - who together with Merkel are expected to rev the Franco-German engine - has a parliament majority in France. The destabilising effect of Brexit can be contained. Now it's time to talk about reforming the EU and - especially - the eurozone. The author proposes three ways to move forward. The first would be to have an ever closer union as proposed by the European Commission's president, Jean-Claude Juncker, who in his state-of-the-union address on September 13 insisted that joining the eurozone and Schengen area would be norm. Juncker rejected a "multi-speed Europe, in favor of uniform steps by EU members," which would expand the Schengen border-free zone to include Bulgaria and Romania. According to Juncker, all member states would join in a European defence union, and more decisions would be taken by qualified majority votes, including on sensitive areas such as tax. There would be no more Europe à la carte, special deals and opt-outs. He also "called for progress toward a European Social Standards Union embodying a shared understanding of welfare entitlement in the single market."In order to enable deeper integration of the eurozone Juncker proposed help for all EU countries to join the euro, so that it could be truly “the single currency of the European Union”, along with changes like the creation of a full banking-union and a Europe-wide finance minister. Has Juncker not learned from the eurozone's past problems - the Greek bailout crisis? No doubt many eurozone members will object the idea of loosening the criteria of adopting the single currency, with countries like Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania being heavily indebted. The third alternative would be "business as usual." The eurozone is on the path of recovery - it is growing faster than the US and unemployment has fallen to the lowest level since 2009. Even Greece shows signs of optimism. The author fears that EU leaders might - like what happened in the past - "put ambitious eurozone reforms on the back burner," seeing no urgency to act, as "the reforms pursued during the crisis are sufficient." They believe they need to "focus on other areas – such as energy, digital regulation, and migration – that in the current context may appear to require more urgent attention." The author says, this attitude is reckless, because the eurozone has a "fundamental flaw: the absence of mechanisms capable of forestalling cost divergences across countries that have lost the ability to engage in exchange-rate adjustment." So EU leaders must make hay while the sun shines. They will be better off taking action now, rather than waiting for the next crisis. "Given that much of the debt overhang remains and much of the rescue ammunition has been spent, another shock could be devastating."For southern Europe the premature adoption of euro had proven to be a golden cage, producing greater fiscal and monetary rectitude but losing the exchange rate as a critical cushion against unexpected shocks. Experts have proposed a scheme, that would allow "the beneficiaries of sudden changes in interest-rate differentials /to/ transfer half their gains into a 'financing cost stabilization account,' to be paid back when the interest-rate shock subsides." The future of the eurozone will be decided by France and Germany. Their positions remain at odds, with Macron looking for more ambitious ways to share debt than many Germans will tolerate. The author is right: "A more realistic option is a multi-speed effort whereby the eurozone countries can move ahead, while others are allowed to wait. The outcome would not be perfect, but it would be better – much better – than the status quo."

For various reasons, be it cultural, economical, historical, there is a strong tradition in Europe of combining declarative formal uniformity with de facto informal multiformity, e.g. the same fish stick brand in the same package puts a higher percentage of fish in de facto first class EU nations than in de facto second class EU nations, or if you are white european you can expect a higher level of medical care in the average provincial french hospital due to racial discrimination at the level hiring with the "one is never better served by oneself (e.g. collective racial self)" acting as a natural zero sum game effective health transfer system. It is possibly the tradition of formal clarity of the germans and there quite recent central position in the EU that will push for a shift from soft and hypocritical but decorative/latin practices to honest and hard but effective/germanic practices.